EU Sovereignty Score
Self-hosted / open sourcePersonal Backup & SyncHeadquarters: US

Retrospect Backup: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

Retrospect Backup is backup software for businesses and small organisations. It protects Windows PCs and servers, Macs and virtual machines (VMware and Hyper-V), and comes in editions ranging from single systems to multi-server environments. Users choose where backups are stored: local disks, a NAS or tape hardware, Retrospect Cloud Storage or one of other cloud storage services that Retrospect supports. The software is installed and run by the customer; the product has existed since 1989.

Retrospect is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, and according to its own website has been a subsidiary of the US company StorCentric, parent of Drobo and Nexsan, since June 2019. It therefore falls under US jurisdiction. Because backup data lands on storage the customer selects, that choice determines where the data resides: if you pick storage in the EU, the data stays there. Retrospect's website does not state a location for Retrospect Cloud Storage and does not offer a data processing agreement, so ask for confirmation where this matters.

See the 8 European alternatives ↓Assess your stack with Retrospect Backup pre-selected
MastodonLinkedInBlueskyXEmail
Sovereignty score
55 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign
  • Jurisdiction SOV-210
    Headquartered in the US: CLOUD Act and FISA 702
  • Data residency SOV-3100
    No hosting in Europe (US)
  • Cryptographic key sovereignty SOV-380
    Closed source, but self-hostable: encryption keys and runtime under your own control
  • Freedom from lock-in SOV-640
    Closed source: switching requires data migration
  • Source & runtime sovereignty SOV-4 · SOV-645
    Closed source, but self-hostable on your own infrastructure

SOV codes: the matching objective in the European Commission's Cloud Sovereignty Framework. Official source

How the score is calculated

Facts and evidence

Last checked October 11, 2026
Headquarters
US (US)Verified by hand
EU adequacy decision
Only for companies individually certified under the EU-US Data Privacy FrameworkVerified by hand
Data hosting
Self-hosted, e.g. in US (your choice)Verified by hand
Open-source
NoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant
NoVendor-stated
Category
Personal Backup & Sync
Type
Product
Website
retrospect.com ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to Retrospect Backup

The European alternatives to Retrospect Backup come from our knowledge base of over 6,800 vendors. We only list vendors headquartered in the EU or the EEA; fully European-owned vendors rank before vendors with a foreign owner. For each alternative you see the country, the open-source status and a short description.

Score per alternative: 0 = high exposure, 100 = sovereign

19 European Personal Backup & Sync vendors are in the catalogue. View the whole category · Submit an alternative · View category on the map

Is Retrospect Backup one of many dependencies?

Score your whole stack in about three minutes. Free, no account needed.

Assess your stack →View a sample report (opens in a new tab)

Why digital sovereignty matters with Retrospect Backup

Retrospect Backup is headquartered in the United States. US vendors fall under the CLOUD Act and FISA 702: US authorities can compel access to data, even when that data sits in a European data centre. That is the core of the jurisdictional exposure in our model.

Retrospect Backup runs on infrastructure you choose and control yourself. You decide where the data lives, including fully within the EU if you want — this is not a fixed hosting choice made by the vendor.

Retrospect Backup is closed source, but you run the software yourself on your own infrastructure. The encryption keys and the runtime therefore stay under your own control, though you cannot audit or modify the source code. Ask about export options and open standards to limit software-level lock-in.

What this means for your organisation depends on your whole stack and context. The free assessment weighs Retrospect Backup together with your other vendors and gives a total score, a heatmap and the main risk drivers.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best European alternative to Retrospect Backup?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to Retrospect Backup include Acronis True Image, Ashampoo Backup and Backup4all. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to Retrospect Backup?

Yes. Open-source EU alternatives to Retrospect Backup include BorgBackup, Cryptomator and FreeFileSync. These keep your data fully under your own control and let you self-host if you want to.

Is Retrospect Backup GDPR-compliant and where is the data hosted?

Retrospect Backup is headquartered in US and hosts data in US. Its GDPR compliance is limited or unclear. For full EU data residency the EU alternatives on this page usually offer more certainty.

Details and sources

Verified by handHeadquarters, owner, hosting locations and licence have been checked by us against public sources. Free of charge and for every vendor, not a paid label. Nothing in this knowledge base is taken over automatically. Last checked on October 11, 2026.

Sources

Public sources used in the latest check of this record.

Compliance evidence

The links below point to the vendor's own public documents. We only record what we found: a missing link means "not found publicly", not "not compliant".

No public compliance evidence has been recorded for this vendor yet. Do you know its DPA or subprocessor list? Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Digital sovereignty in Personal Backup & Sync

Personal Backup & Sync: Personal backup tools, file synchronisation and data recovery. In this category the choice of vendor determines who has legal access to your data, where that data lives and how easily you can switch later.

Also in this category

See all →
Open in the alternatives dashboardMissing a vendor? Submit itAre you this vendor? You can also become a sponsor on the Personal Backup & Sync page — with no effect on your score
8 European alternatives to Retrospect Backup — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score